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Person of Interest Review: Welcome to Suburbia

John, it's the doorbell. Let's try to not shoot any girl scouts on the first day, okay?"- Zoe Morgan

At this point, it's really no surprise that Person of Interest continues to dish out quality episodes like Reese dishes out gunshots to the kneecap. They really hit their marks every time.

With "The High Road," Reese had the unusual chance to travel to suburbia to protect Graham, a former safe-cracker turned doting husband and father. The transition to the neighborhood was the perfect way to add a twist to the generally city-centric plots, bring back the wonderful Zoe Morgan and let Reese continue to charm with his deadpan humor.

Zoe is always a welcome addition to this show and the chemistry is so great between her and Reese that with their flirtatious back and forth in "getting married" to playing poker, you can't help but expect them to jump each other and let the clothes fly off.

Every scene with these two makes you smile.

And Reese really has a fantastic rapport with everyone, including Finch and Carter, each with their own type of banter. From Carter telling Reese to not go fight the bad guys in broad daylight to Reese getting to be Finch's "boss" for the moment, there were more examples of the great interactions between everyone on the show.

I was hoping Fusco might pop in, but he must be on duty dealing with HR or something.

Certainly, the charisma and personality of the characters fit perfectly into the well-oiled machine that is Person of Interest.

And once again, the case proved to be interesting, taking the story one direction with the stolen identity before flipping it and revealing a former thief. Top it off with Graham's decision to save his family by committing one final heist, all while Reese trying to keep him alive.

It's easy to become captivated in each aspect of the hour, not only hoping to see Reese scale buildings like Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible, but also see how the specific person of interest ends up.

Sure, for the most part, we can assume Reese saves the day, but there's always one last little twist to keep things from getting stuck in standard procedural fare. Who knew Graham would choose to turn himself in?!?

Of course, even with the episode packed full of everything that makes watching Finch and Reese save people week after week enthralling, we were even treated to a flashback that gave us another look at Finch working on the Machine.

I may not have the brain to understand the algorithms or the more technical jargon associated with how the Machine actually works, but it's great to see it continue to adapt and grow as it "learns" from watching people and pointing out the significant outliers. The show does a nice job of not alienating viewers from grasping what's going on with the super computer.

So, who knew the Machine would turn out to be a great wingman in picking up chicks?

We finally got to see Finch's first encounter with Grace, a woman we met last season who turned out to be the love of Finch's life. It not only illustrated again that human side to the tech-obsessed character, but cleverly showed Finch a woman that is perfect for him.

It's just a bit sad knowing he eventually had to leave her behind.

This episode really nailed down all the action, drama and humor that makes the series entertaining to watch. And with characters and stories worth following, Person of Interest continues to prove that it is the fresh, fun and top notch Thursday night show you can count on.

This was a fantastic episode! It was nice to see Reese out of the suit! Eventhough Jim makes anything look good!

Jaclyn•November 12, 2012 23:38

Not sure if this was already mentioned, but Alicia Witt also has a recurring role on the Mentalist as Rosalind Harker, the woman who supposedly has harbored Red John...it was somewhat odd to not think of her as blind in this episode! Anyway, I absolutely love POI and really enjoyed this week; it's always nice to shift between "lighter" and more intense episodes.

Suncatcher•November 12, 2012 13:29

@SavhCAro - I agree with you re inability to view full POI episodes online. We can buy individual episodes from Amazon. However, I found full POI episodes online - for free - at one-tvshows.eu. If you go there, just search for POI and follow the prompts. I have nothing to do with them - just sharing this info as there are so many of us who have been very frustrated about this issue.

SavhCAro•November 11, 2012 19:56

POI is owned by WB and they will not allow CBS to show full episodes on-line. Complain to the WB. I have read that the WB wants people to buy the series dvds instead of watching online. Think of all the fans they may lose or never have because they can NOT see the eppys on line. There is not a better show on TV hands down. The writing, the acting, the story lines are topnotch week in and week out. Never disappoint, always entertain.........

Even further back in time, Alicia Witt played the tiny sister of Kyle McLaughlin, Alia Atreides, in Dune, the one who called out the bad guy at the end of the movie. She was very scary then ... She did a nice turn as a predatory single woman in Two Weeks Notice, too. I particularly liked the quirk in Reese's smile when Zoe suggested that they stay another night to "play poker." He was always so sad. It's nice to see the character lightening up a bit, developing a life, friendships, reasons to keep living. This show just keeps getting better, and it started out higher than most in the first place. Some CBS shows are not eve available on the CBS web site. This is one of them. They said it is something about contracts. I think it is stupid; it cuts the viewership. But no one asked my opinion.

Charmian•November 11, 2012 03:04

The other redhead, Grace Hendricks, who later became the fiancee of Finch, is Carrie Preston, the real-life wife of Michael Emerson.

To Allie 701.. a lot of CBS shows you have to go to CBS.com and watch episodes online. I don't know how to download them.Now to this episode..POI is never disappointing. I loved the exchange between Zoe and John upon arriving at "home" and the doorbell rings. As reviewer stated the chemistry between all of the actors is on target. I loved the twist Chapman gave himself up. It really showed that he did realize his past caught up with him and he was grown up enough to pay for his past sins. As usual I rated show 5 stars.

Does anyone know why this show and The Mentalist are not on Comcast"s On Demand menu? I confess I fell asleep while watching this episode (totally caused by fatigue, not boredom) and expected to be able to catch up from the cable company's archive but they don't have this show on the menu. I guess I can catch it online but considering what I pay Comcast, I thought it would be available.Some great dialog on this episode while I was awake.